American Journalism, Brought to you By The Democrat Party

14 Jun, 2010 by Warner Todd Huston

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When someone says “journalist” do you have a picture of a fedora-sporting, cigar chomping, agitator with jaded mien and independent mind, a man stubbornly outside the political establishment looking in and eyeing it all with suspicion? Do you get a flash of a writer that stands in opposition to entrenched powers, one looking out for the little folks ala an Upton Sinclair? If so you’ve been watching too many antiquated, black-and-white moves from the 1940s. Today, “journalist” simply means an extension of the Democrat Party. And now even the book parties held so “journalists” can launch their latest paean to liberalism is bought and paid for by leftists, the Democrat Party, and its operatives.

To disabuse you of that old-fashioned notion, on June 9, Washington Post star reporter Ceci Connolly had to cancel her appearance at her own book party when it became common knowledge that the whole thing was being paid for by a public relations firm run by Democrat operatives. The event was bought and paid for by Blue Line Strategic Communications, a public relations firm run by Democratic communications strategist Michael Meehan and former Senate Democratic official David DiMartino. Most recently DiMartino was a Sen. John Kerry staffer and Meehan worked as a senior staff member in the Senate for years.

So much for the idea of independent journalists.

Connolly, of course, isn’t the only one. There is a long, long list of “journalists” that jumped from the Old Media to Obama’s new administration when it stormed Washington, the most powerful of whom is senior Obama advisor David Axelrod, a former Chicago Trib. reporter. And this wasn’t a one-time Old Media culling, either. Just this month Teddy Davis, now former ABC News deputy political director, has quit to join the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), longtime Democrat operatives.

And there are many others. Just to name a few:

Linda Douglas: Onetime CBS Congressional correspondent, later Obama healthcare media chief
Geoff Morrell: Once an ABC News guy, now spokesman for Sec. Def. Robert Gates.
Beverley Lumpkin: Once worked for both ABC and CBS, now she’s working for Obama’s Dept. of Justice
Warren Bass: Former deputy editor of the Post’s Sunday Outlook, now working for U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice
Dr. Sanjay Gupta: CNN/CBS reporter, then tapped for Obama’s Surgeon General (though his name was later pulled)
Rosa Brooks: Went from L.A. Times columnist to an employee of the Defense Dept.
Jay Carney: From Time Magazine to Vice President Biden’s office
Peter Gosselin: From the L.A. Times to Treasury Se. Geithner’s office
David Hoff: Once a blogger and reporter for Education Week, now he’s a communications staffer at the Dept. of Education
Rick Weiss: Was a Washington Post reporter, now works for the White House
Jill Zuckman: Went from the Chicago Tribune to the Dept. of Transportation

And proving that the door is not just one way, but a revolving one, Linda Douglas recently left the Obama Administration only once again to take up her pen as a “journalist.” In June Douglas took a job with the Atlantic as a vice president. Yeah, I’ll bet she’ll be real non-partisan in her future “journalism,” eh?

So, when someone tells you that American journalists are independent of politics, that they are the venerable fourth estate you can assure them that the press is more like a fifth column than a fourth estate and you can show them the cozy relationship that the press has with the Democrat Party as presented here. Then ask them to prove to you just how independent the press really is?

(Originally posted at BigJournalism.com)